Chapter 3

Estelle's POV

When the banquet ended, I didn't say goodbye to anyone. I clutched my camera and rushed into the elevator, my index finger jabbing the door-close button three times.

The instant the metal doors slid shut, a shadow flickered at the end of the corridor, but I didn't look back.

My spine pressed against the elevator's mirrored wall, my heartbeat hammering wildly against my ribs. The camera bag's strap dug into my collarbone, the pain sharp and real.

Back in my hotel suite, I opened my camera and scrolled through tonight's photos.

Wide shots of the banquet hall, group photos of Marcus with the investment team, close-ups of champagne bubbles on waiters' trays. Even though I was just an Omega who'd spent the entire evening trembling in her seat under Alpha pressure, the photos in my camera still proved I'd completed my job perfectly.

Until I reached the shot of Alpha Bruce shaking hands with Alpha Marcus.

A reflection glinted in the floor-to-ceiling glass behind them. My finger froze.

I continued scrolling through the photos, and discovered that every frame with me in it had that silver reflection somewhere in the background. Sometimes clear, sometimes blurred, but always there—like an omnipresent eye.

I practically ran to the desk and opened my laptop.

The screen's glow illuminated my entire face as I inserted the memory card into the reader and marked each reflection point one by one. Then I switched to Photoshop, using the perspective grid tool to reverse-calculate the angle of incidence for each reflective surface.

The calculation results appeared one after another, all light sources tracing back to the same coordinates—a window in the building across from the banquet hall. I opened the map and searched for the building's location. The name popped up: Blackmoon Industries.

I stared at that name on the screen, my fingertips ice-cold, feeling the blood in my spine freezing vertebra by vertebra.

Maybe not just tonight—Alpha Bruce could have been watching me like this for all five years.

I'd thought I was free, thought that every moment at Silver Shadow Studio, in my cottage in Willow Creek, picking out milk at the supermarket shelves—all belonged to me alone...

My back slid down the edge of the bed until I collapsed onto the carpet.

Outside the window, Silver Crown City glittered with lights of every color. I stared at those points of light, my brain beginning to retrace this photography project.

Alpha Marcus's unreasonably generous offer, the flash of hesitation in Claire's eyes when she'd voluntarily transferred the project to me—every event was a seemingly reasonable coincidence.

It turned out Alpha Bruce never needed to force me. He only needed to fill all my escape routes with dead ends, then leave one door open. I would walk through it myself.

Suddenly, the sound of the door handle turning echoed through the room. I spun around sharply. I didn't move forward but retreated to the farthest corner of the bathroom, my hand fumbling across the vanity until it found a pair of scissors. I gripped them tight, the blade pointed toward the door.

Alpha Bruce stood in the bathroom doorway. His banquet suit jacket was already off, the top two buttons of his black shirt undone, revealing the faint scar below his collarbone.

He didn't look at the scissors in my hand. He simply walked in and locked the door behind him.

Before I could react, the Alpha's pressure instantly enveloped me. The scissors fell from my hand, metal striking tile with a sharp, piercing sound.

Alpha Bruce grabbed me and pinned me against the door panel, one hand braced beside my head, the other hand's thumb pressing against the mark on my neck. The scent of pine overwhelmed me completely.

Searing pain exploded instantly.

My entire body felt electrocuted, my knees going weak. Only my back pressed hard against the door panel kept me from sliding down. The mark under his touch seemed to come alive, throbbing violently, heat spreading from my neck to my collarbone, shoulder blades, spine, and even lower...

"Why did you run just now? Don't you want to see me?"

His voice was pitched very low, his ice-gray pupils glowing unnaturally bright in the dim room, close enough that I could see the fine fractures at the edges of his irises.

"Do you want to escape that badly?"

I tried to retreat, but the door panel dug into my shoulder blades.

"Five years ago, you promised to let me go." My voice was tight, each word seeming to squeeze out through clenched teeth.

He didn't release me. His thumb moved slowly over the mark, each stroke driving that burning pain deeper into my bones.

"I did let you go," he said.

Something cracked in those ice-gray pupils. "But now you've come back."

Alpha Bruce didn't give me another chance to refuse. His fingers lifted my chin, and he kissed me, following the line of my lips.

It was still that intensely eager, viscous kissing style from my memories, his tongue probing even deeper than any time I could remember, constantly tangling and sucking with mine, as if trying to transfer all of that same fervent scent from his body to me.

"What are you doing... let go... let go now..."

When Alpha Bruce finally released my lips and began kissing his way down my jaw and neck, I couldn't help but push against him with all the force I could muster through the trembling and weakness his touch caused in my body—only to find my voice growing more breathless as well.

But Alpha Bruce acted as if he hadn't heard my refusal at all. His hands grew even more unruly, caressing my breasts through my soft-textured shirt.

"Be honest. You're clearly enjoying this." As he kneaded, he brought his smirking mouth—smug from taking such advantage—back to my ear, lightly biting my earlobe.

I instinctively tried to grab Alpha Bruce's arm to make him behave, but the moment my fingers touched his inexplicably burning skin, his other free hand seized them, binding both my wrists together, raising them above my head and pressing them against the wall.

"Mm, Alpha Bruce... if you keep this up, I really will call security..." I met those ice-gray eyes pressing down on me again, forcing out a few words as weak as my body through gritted teeth.

"Do you think in Silver Crown City... anyone would dare interfere with my business?" He bit my lips lightly again, while his other free hand's fingers continued sliding downward through my shirt, slipping into my pants.

"Ah... wait... ah..."

My fingers pinned above my head by Alpha Bruce trembled. I could feel him gripping my wrists even harder. I felt utterly ashamed of the practiced responses and kisses my body—trained deep in my marrow—returned to his touch. "Stop, please..."

In my ear was his increasingly urgent and sensual breathing between my lips, growing even more lewd from slight oxygen deprivation.

"Isn't it too late to beg for mercy now?" Alpha Bruce continued murmuring half-tauntingly, half-seductively in my ear, but his hands showed no sign of stopping. "Where's that defiance from before?"

"Estelle... we're both adults now. Do you think I can stop at this point?"

My heart instantly went cold. Perhaps accepting the coming humiliation, I gave up struggling.

Alpha Bruce stopped all movement, then released me and stepped back half a pace, his ice-gray eyes sweeping over me once.

"The autumn you left, the tree you planted nearly died."

His voice was very soft, as if talking to himself.

"Later it came back to life."

My hands clenched tightly, knuckles white.

He paused, his voice dropping to a hoarse whisper almost inaudible: "...Estelle, I missed you. Very much."

All the defenses I'd built over five years crumbled to dust before those words "I missed you."

I turned my head away from him, teeth biting the inside of my lower lip, the taste of rust spreading across my tongue.

The bathroom door opened and closed. I heard his footsteps fade away.

I sat alone on the bathroom floor, arms wrapped around my knees, shoulders shaking silently.

Zara was howling mournfully in my chest too, while the mark on my neck burned as if it might sear through my skin at any second.

Previous Chapter
Next Chapter